BarhamHistory.com
William HELLYER (1799 - 1887)
Mariner
William Hellyer, my great-great-great-grandfather, was born in Mapperton Dorset in 1799. His parents, and many generations before them, came from the nearby village of Netherbury, which is about 1½ miles south-west of Beaminster. Mapperton itself is an estate with a manor house, so the residents of the parish would either be the family in the manor house, the clergyman, their staff and the estate workers. William’s parents were farm labourers and probably lived in the hamlet of Myeth, described on the Dorset OPC website. Agriculture in the early 19th century was undergoing an industrial revolution, and this resulted in unemployment for some and reduced wages for others, leading to social unrest, including the Swing Riots and the Tolpuddle martyrs. Many would have sought employment elsewhere, particularly at sea, and William took this option.
His move was to Wyke Regis (now part of Weymouth) where he married Martha Vivian on 21st August 1823, shortly after the death of his father, in Netherbury. Martha was born in nearby Rodden, a hamlet near Abbotsbury and her parents were also agricultural labourers.
Both William and Martha were illiterate, signing the register with a cross. Four years later Martha gave birth to twins, Agnes Margaret and William Charles, who were baptised in Radipole (another village on the outskirts of Weymouth) on 26th August 1827. Two further sons followed, Joseph (1831) and Giles (1835), both born in Melcombe Regis. William is described as a sailor in Giles’ baptism record, and again in the census of 1841, when they were living in Carters Cottages in Melcombe Regis. A late addition to the family came in 1847 with the birth of another daughter, Martha Sarah.
William had, by this time, retired from the sea and was working as a coal porter, a job he undertook for at least the next 14 years. According to the 1851 census, William, Martha, Agnes, Giles and Martha Sarah living at 10, Little George Street, Weymouth They had been joined by Martha’s mother, Dinah, as her father, John Vivian, had died of ‘fever’ in 1846. Martha was working as a shopkeeper, Agnes was a dressmaker and Giles, aged 16, was working as an errand boy. Dinah was described as a pauper, William Charles and Joseph had both left, and there is no further record of them.
Several sad events occurred in the next 10 years. Martha died of liver disease in 1852 and five years later, daughter Martha Sarah died, aged 11, of “scarlatina maligna, ulceration of larynx”. Finally, in 1859, mother-in-law Dinah passed away at the age of 85. So in 1861, the year of the next census, William was living in Park Street and working as a coal porter. Only his daughter, Agnes, was now with him, still working as a dress maker and still unmarried - presumably that avenue was precluded by having to care for her parents, and until recently, her grandmother. However, two years later, Agnes herself died, leaving William alone.
Not completely alone, however, as his son Giles, himself a sailor, had recently married and was living back in Little George Street. William was by this time 64 and so it is unlikely that he was able to continue to work as a coal porter for long. Certainly, by 1871, the next census show that William was still living in Park Street, but had been joined by Giles and his ever growing family, at this time consisting of wife and five children. William had indeed ceased his arduous work and was described as a ‘late mariner’.
Giles, as is chronicled elsewhere, was nearly 40 and so himself becoming of an age to retire from the sea. As more children were added to the family, the accommodation must have become unbearably cramped. So whilst two more children were born in Melcombe Regis, we find that the eighth was born in Rotherhithe in 1876 and it is in South East London that we find William, Giles and the family in 1881.
So why the move? In 1765 the Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society (RASS) was established to set up a hospital for “the worn-out mariner of all grades of the mercantile marine when aged and disabled” and also to provide a scheme of pensions for those who wanted to remain with their friends. The Society had voluntary agents in all the principal seaports to identify potential beneficiaries and no doubt William, at over 70 years of age would be a worthy candidate. The Society established the ‘Belvedere Hospital for Worn-out and `Disabled Merchant Seamen’ in 1867, and this was later renamed as the ‘Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamans Institution’. The 1881 census shows William living there, aged 81 and described as a pensioner with the rank of ‘seaman’. There was a total of 84 pensioners living there – more details can be found in the Society’s book ‘Home from Sea’.
Giles himself was 40 years old and retired from the sea and moved to Rotherhithe to take employment as lock gate keeper on the recently opened Grand Surrey Canal, which connected South London to the Thames at Rotherhithe. It may well be that this had also been arranged through the RASS. William had fathered five children, only one of whom, Giles, was demonstrably still living. His wife and two daughters had predeceased him and there is no trace of the two elder sons, William and Joseph. However by the time of the 1881 census he had 11 grandchildren, 4 of whom had died. In 1883 Ellen Edith, his last granddaughter, but sadly another existing granddaughter, Alice Florence, had died the previous year. He lived another 6 years at Belvedere, dying on 12th February 1887 of ‘senile decay’. That was not, however, before the birth of his first great grandchild, Herbert William Barham.
So it was that the illiterate son of farm labourers, who had run to the sea in order to escape rural poverty, lived to the great age of 87, no doubt assisted by the increasing welfare afforded to ex-mariners.